From: matz@... (Yukihiro Matsumoto)
Date: 2000-03-28T01:33:11+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:02188] Re: Ruby strict mode and stand-alone executables.

Hi,

In message "[ruby-talk:02165] Ruby strict mode and stand-alone executables."
    on 00/03/25, "Conrad Schneiker" <schneiker@jump.net> writes:

|Some people want Ruby to have a strict compile mode.
|
|I (and probably many other Ruby users) would also like some sort of means
|whereby a stand-alone executable could be produced so that one could run
|Ruby programs on machines that don't have Ruby and the needed modules
|installed on them. (I understand that you would not be able to arbitrarily
|import modules at run time, but for a great many applications, this would be
|OK.)

There can be several ways to make stand-alone executable from Ruby
program.  

  * dump core after loading everything, then use undump; this scheme
    is used by Emacs and Perl.

  * write out internal program representation like bytecodes; Python
    uses this scheme (among others).

  * generate C program by translator.  experimental (but usable) rb2c
    translator does this.

|If there is any overlap in the capabilities needed for these two desired
|features (for instance, if some additional restrictions are needed to insure
|that stand-alone executables were feasible), or if there would be any
|synergy for implementing both at the same time, I would like to make sure
|that these things are considered in advance.

The strict compile mode may help improve performance of the generated
executable, but I don't think it to be requirement.

							matz.